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Voices of Common Sense VOICES OF COMMON SENSE Philosophical principle, a quality of the sociable man, a feature of language and communication. Sometimes degraded to political slogan. The understanding of common sense continues to stimulate debate, and remains relevant. We offer a selection of seventy books and manuscripts which convey some of the voices that, in one sense or another, have championed this idea. From Aristotle’s first intuition of the concept to Cicero’s, Horace’s and Seneca’s classical declension of a quality essential to humanity; to early-modern attempts to grapple with the notion of mind and its relationship with the external world; to the Scottish school of philosophy that, starting from a critical reading of Hume and Berkeley, turned common sense into a philosophical principle and, principally through the works of Thomas Reid, became extremely influential on American thought; to Kant, and pragmatism, and twentieth-century philosophers like Popper, Moore and Wittgenstein. Economists like Adam Smith or Dugald Stewart, sociologists like Adam Ferguson, essayists like Voltaire and Hazlitt, historians like Buchanan and statists like Tocqueville join in the conversation with the philosophers proper, as if to point to the far-reaching remits of a concept which has been, since inception, wider than a simple point of method. BERNARD QUARITCH ltd LIST 2016/4 [email protected] VOICES OF COMMON SENSE ENTER KOINE AISTHESIS 1. ARISTOTLE. [Scientific and psychological works, in Greek]. Aristotelous Physikēs akroaseōs biblia 8. Peri ouranou 4. Peri geneseōs kai phthoras 2. Meteōrologikōn 4. Peri kosmou 1. Peri phychēs 3 ... Aristotelis Physicae auscultationis lib. 8. De coelo 4. De gener. & corruptione 2. Meteorologicorum 4. De mundo 1. De anima 3. De sensu & sensibilibus, lib. 1. De memoria & reminiscentia 1. De somno & vigilia 1. De insomniis 1. De diuinatione per somnum 1. De iuuentute, senectute, vita & morte 1. De respiratione 1. De lōgitudine & breuitate vitae 1. Addita in tractatus cuiusq; fine varia locorum lectio, e libris tum impressis, tum manu scriptis. Adhaec index capitum; & rerum ac verborum notatu digniorum bina inuentaria, alterum graecum, alterum latinum. Frankfurt, Wechel, 1584 . 8vo, pp. 204, 108, 60, 132, 31, 78, 111, [1]; faint marginal stains to the last quires, but a very good, clean, generously-margined copy in dark impression, in a contemporary memorial binding of blind-stamped vellum over boards, sides with borders of foliage and cameos illustrating prominent humanists, rectangular centre-pieces of foliage and cartouches, the front dated 1584 (the same date as the publishing of the book) and enclosing a medallion with a memorial portrait of a German gentleman, his arms in the medallion on the rear; acquisition inscription dated June 1586 by Joseph Loeher from Sindelfingen (near Stuttgart) on the front free end-paper, early citation from Cicero’s De officiis on the front paste-down. £6500 First appearance of the authoritative Sylburg edition (‘beautiful, correct and scarce’, Dibdin) of Aristotle’s works on physics, cosmology and biology. A fine copy, in an attractive contemporary German memorial binding. It is in works on psychology, theory of perception and physiology such as De anima, De memoria et reminiscentia and De partibus animalium that Aristotle makes reference to koine aisthesis , that is sensus communis , ‘common sense’. Since Aristotle’s use of the term is rather sparse, interpretations of its meaning are not univocal; but there seems to be consensus on identifying common sense with a higher-order perceptual capacity of the mind which unites and monitors the five senses: a non-rational cognitive power comprising the perceptual and the imaginative capacities. It has been noted (Oehler) that it was Aristotle who first mooted the ‘argumentum e consensu omnium’, or public opinion, as a criterion for truth. ‘Great critical power and indefatigable industry’ (Britannica) immediately gave Sylburg’s impressive list of works edited for the publisher Wechel a mark of distinction and authority which set them apart in the sixteenth century and ever since. In the case of Aristotle, the renown and skills of the editor were matched by a renewed appetite for confronting the Philosopher’s insights on such issues as space, time, movement, speed, acceleration, by reading his thoughts in his own language and from sources as close to correctness as possible. Adams 1734. BRAIN AND THOUGHT INVESTIGATED 2. ABERCROMBIE, John. Inquiries concerning the intellectual powers and the investigation of truth. Edinburgh, Waugh and Innes, 1832. 8vo, pp. xvi, 441, [1 blank]; a very good copy in contemporary polished half calf, panelled spine with half-raised bands, decorated in gilt with a red morocco lettering-piece, marbled boards; joints cracked but holding. £140 Third edition, ‘ various new facts have been added ’ (preface to this edition), of a pioneering neurocognitive work by a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh. Abercrombie examines sensation and perception, reasoning, memory, dreams, somnambulism and other phenomena of the mind, attempting definitions of insanity. The first edition had appeared in Edinburgh by Waugh and Innes in 1830. This third, expanded edition was published in the same year as the first America edition, which appeared as part of J. and J. Harper’s Family Library. Charles Darwin owned a copy of a slightly later edition (1838), and annotated it with thoughts about the relationship between brain and thought, embracing Abercrombie’s agnosticism regarding this subject. Jessop p. 81. SENSES THE BASIS OF ALL MENTAL PROCESSES 3. BAIN, Alexander . Autograph Letter, Signed, to Edward Livingston Youmans. Aberdeen, 27 th November 1875. [Inserted in:] BAIN, Alexander. The emotions and the will. London, Longmans, Green, 1865. 8vo, pp. xxxii, 616 + 24 (publisher’s advertisements); occasional, light foxing, but a very good copy, uncut and partly unopened in the original publisher’s brown cloth, sides panelled in blind, flat spine lettered in gilt; spine ends a little worn; autograph letter by the author inserted in the books, pp. [4], 12 lines to a page, brown ink; remarkably fresh, well-preserved and thoroughly legible. £500 Second edition, with ‘extensive emendations… the chapter on Emotions in general has been wholly recast […] and all that regards the connexions of mind with physical processes has undergone careful revision’ (author’s preface to this edition). A handsome association copy belonging to Edward Livingston Youmans, the recipient of the letter tipped inside the book. Youmans was the author of the preface to the American edition of this work by the Aberdeen Professor, advocate of British empiricism, founder of the influential journal ‘Mind’ in 1876, and Mill’s assistant in the preparation of his Logic. Bain maintained that all mental processes must be based on physical sensations. He strove to identify the link between the mind and the body, focusing on the physiological correlations between mental and behavioural phenomena. A strong influence on Bain was Darwin, whose masterpiece ‘was published the same year as The Emotions and the Will (1859). Bain never became an evolutionist, though he received Darwin’s work with critical admiration. Darwin refers to Bain’s psychology of emotions in his Expression of the emotions in Man and Animals (1872), and Bain responds to this reference in later editions of his psychological treatises’ (G. Hamner, American pragmatism , note 4 to Chapter 5). The autograph letter recommends a forthcoming textbook on Roman Law by Bain’s former pupil, the Scottish jurist William Alexander Hunter, as very remarkable and eminently suited for advertising and distribution in America. Indeed, Hunter’s Introduction to Roman Law , which saw the light first in 1880, was to become a standard textbook both sides of the Atlantic. Jessop,p.85. IDEAS ARE NOT INNATE 4. BARBIERI, Lodovico. Trattato di psicologia nel quale si ragiona della natura dell’anime umane, e degli altri spiriti, della loro excellenza sopra i corpi, della intelligenza, della volonta, della immortalita ... Venice, Pietro Valvasense, 1756. 8vo, xxxi, [1], 340 (the last page with list of books printed by Valvasense); woodcut title- page vignette, initials, head- and tailpieces; a little light foxing, some very faint damp staining towards the end; a very good copy in contemporary stiff vellum, gilt lettering and inked roman numerals to spine, red edges; a few marks; circular blue ink stamp to title-page, contemporary ownership inscription of F. Philippus of Poggio Mirteto to foot of title-page and his book label to facing flyleaf. £500 First edition, very rare, of the polymath Barbieri’s treatise in which he argues that the soul is an ‘active power’. Barbieri’s text tackles the interrelation of the body and soul, the nature of space, will and freedom, arguing against the theory of innate ideas, and attempts to provide proof of the soul’s immortality. In the course of his discussion, Barbieri confronts Leibniz’s ‘monads’ and doctrine of pre-established harmony, and sets himself in opposition to Locke and, in particular, to Antonio Genovesi. Rare: 4 copies only in the UK/US: British Library, Chicago, New York Public Library, and Yale. TAKING ISSUE WITH BERKELEY’S ‘ABSENCE OF MATTER’ 5. BAXTER, Andrew. An Enquiry into the Nature of the human Soul; wherein the Immateriality of the Soul is evinced from the Principles of Reason and Philosophy. London, printed by James Bettenham, for the Author; and sold by G. Strahan
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